Software typically is sold in retail stores like other products, packaged in boxes that are placed on shelves for consumers to buy. Like the sale of other products, this entails the need for sales personnel, customer service, and the allocation of precious shelf space, all of which add to the overhead of the sale.
The present invention understands that software can be provided using kiosks. A consumer can place a portable computing device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) near or on the kiosk and select one or more software titles desired by the consumer. Then, the kiosk can wirelessly beam the selected software to the PDA. In this way, floor space is conserved, since the software need not be boxed and placed on shelves, and sales personnel need not be involved with the transaction.
The present invention further recognizes, however, that it is often the case that a consumer desires to try out software before purchasing it, and accordingly that a seller may desire to provide a free demonstration version of the software to the consumer for trial use. In such a scenario, the consumer, as understood herein, can download the demonstration version at the kiosk and later try out the demonstration version away from the store. Using the kiosk for this purpose advantageously increases foot traffic in the store, while providing an easy, efficient, and low overhead way to get demonstration software into the hands of consumers.
If the consumer likes the software, he or she can then purchase the software over the Internet without returning to the store from which the demonstration version was obtained. The present invention critically recognizes, however, that it is possible under the above-discussed scenario that the Web site from which the full version is bought would have no way of knowing that the purchase was in response to the successful trial of demonstration software, much less the identity of the store at which the demonstration version was obtained. This represents a significant drawback from a sales and marketing viewpoint, because the efficacy of the demonstration version cannot be tracked and moreover the store that was responsible for providing the demonstration version that led to a sale cannot be given credit for the sale for revenue sharing purposes.